Bio:

The youngest of ten children, Igby’s mother died during childbirth. His father raised Igby and his siblings in a devoutly religious household, ruling the family with stifling discipline and occasional alcohol-fueled abuse. His eldest brother Devlyn took a keen interest in Igby early on, protecting him from his father and introducing him to epic fables he’d learned from classmates. They’d stay up nights inventing their own stories as a means to escape their unfortunate home life.

On Igby’s twelfth birthday, Devlyn took Igby to the basement once their father had passed out drunk, pointing to a mound under a drop cloth in a dark corner. Igby pulled off the cover and found a hastily but delicately repaired lute that had the symbol of Kol Korran etched into its front. The damaged but playable lute had a distorted, buzzing tone that immediately appealed to Igby, who had all his life been shielded from bardic music and other less than genteel pursuits by his pious father.

Igby and Devlyn would venture into the basement for years once their father drank himself into slumber. Devlyn would relate epic tales of adventure while Igby belted out haunting melodies in a style that had never until then been played. The style of his playing developed remarkably, but his studies began to suffer. This of course infuriated his father, who responded with more abuse.

One night, as usual, Igby and Devlyn took to the basement. They had over-estimated their father’s state of mind, however, and were petrified to see him come down the stairs, belt in hand. The father lunged at Igby, but Devlyn got in the way. The drunken man pushed Devlyn, who stumbled and hit his head squarely on a sharp corner jutting out from the basement’s wall. Seeing his brother’s blood Igby became furious, and murdered his father with a loose brick in the basement. Turning to Devlyn, he was unable to revive his beloved brother. He was dead.
Igby fled town, venturing East and surviving by playing his haunting brand of lute in urban centers and by exploiting his natural appeal to the fairer sex. One night a beautiful wizardress invited Igby to her home. When he arrived there, he was greeted by a coven of some two-dozen young and fair wizardresses. He stayed there with them for a season, regaling them with epic ballads about adventure and love and entertaining them in their beds in the evening. In the daytime, the coven of nymphs would teach him in the arcane arts.

On his last night with his companions, a powerful old wizard rushed in on the harem in the midst of Igby’s nightly entertainments. Enraged that Igby had corrupted his daughters and robbed them of their chastity, making them unsuitable for marriage, he cursed Igby, telling him that he would lose function of his fret hand in three years time, he’d lose use of his voice in four, and that he would die in five years time unless he remitted payment of 500 gold pieces per virgin defiled. All told, Igby was now indebted to Spector the Wizard to the tune of 12,500 gold pieces. He immediately set out further east; arriving angered and hungry, but armed in new arcane talents, in Gate Pass.